Are you looking for ways to improve students' performance during speaking assignments? Self-talk (or internal dialogue) can mediate students' emotions and performance during tasks (Tod et al., 2011). Consequently, it offers us insights into students' experiences during high stress situations such as speech assessments. In this presentation, I will first introduce a teacher-research project conducted with 130 Japanese 1st-year university students. I asked students to retrospectively record examples of their self-talk before, during, and after a speech test. The results pinpoint the most stressful part of making a speech and identify types of self-talk that might be hindering or strengthening students. Finally, I will share how these findings will inform a future intervention study on effects of positive self-talk on performance. I hope you will join me to explore our experiences and ideas about enhancing student performance during speaking assignments and conducting teacher research.
Dawn Kobayashi is an associate professor of English at Onomichi City University Japan. She has taught English in Japan for over 20 years and earned her doctorate in education from the University of Liverpool. Her research interests are educational psychology especially self-efficacy, speaking fluency, and English through drama.
